Waste Not Want Not

Kevin and I started some parsnip wine the other night. It used 5 lbs of parsnips for one gallon! And barely used them. I thought we'd end up with a sloppy mess of parsnip mush that would go straight into the compost. But the recipe said boil until tender but not mushy and then remove the parsnips. So they were still very edible. ...So now we are up to our eyeballs in parsnip soup. Luckily we had a dinner guest last night to help us get through some. We have some more to eat this lunchtime but the rest has gone into the freezer. I am glad we were able to get maximum use of those parsnips.


The soup tasted really good. Very rich which is why it's usually served as a starter (but that's no way to get through it). I used this recipe as a guide and replaced the heavy cream with raw cashew cream a la Dana Shortt like I did here.

In other brewery news, we also started some wine made from Welch's grape juice, recipe here. And we are attempting to start some black currant wine using Ribena but the yeast just won't get started. We have also had a chance to taste mostly everything from our cellar. Everything has been very good. The clove wine was a hit over Christmas, a great liqueur type drink that I think should be a Christmas tradition. The pineapple wine was pretty good, quite pineapple-y and quite dry. Might make it again someday. And the dandelion wine was finally ready over Christmas and it was delicious, should definitely make that every Spring.


And here's a picture of the little piglet gobbling up his own little bowl of popcorn last night. He was so into eating it he didn't even flip the bowl over right away.

Vegan Cream Soup

I tried a new recipe today for leek and potato soup. It was in our local paper and it uses cashew cream. I've enjoyed cashew cream with vegan desserts before but never thought of doing this. Before I would just add soy milk in place of the cream and the soups have been good but never as good as this. This soup turned out really creamy.

I just put 1 cup of raw cashews in water overnight (in the refrigerator) and today I rinsed the cashews, blended them up with just enough water and then added it to the soup - I need to try some more cream soup recipes now. It was filling too!

Soup and Sourdough

I made Sourdough bread according to the instructions in Wild Fermentation. The sour starter had this terrible cheesy smell and the bread kind of had the same smell/taste. So it didn't turn out well. It did rise by itself from the wild yeasts and taste sour so that was exciting. I guess the yeasts around here just aren't tasty?


We had it with a new soup recipe that I got off Soulemama's blog. Cream of Broccoli. It was really tasty except it had the problem that I have with all pureed soups, I just don't find them filling and I'm not willing to make something to go along with them.
http://www.soulemama.com/soulemama/2009/09/bits.html

First Soup

We had the first soup of the season here yesterday. I made my standard soup with various veg including potatoes and carrots in veg stock with oregano but this time I at least added parsley from the garden. I am making a vow to try some different soups this year.


It is getting cold. Kevin also insisted on putting the heat on for part of the day yesterday. And Henry has been looking cute in his snuggly sweaters.